A Scottish Storyteller

A personal tale of Aberdeenshire's great fiddler, James Scott Skinner. Who... I'd not even heard of until I decided i was going to learn to play the fiddle! Which some people find rather shocking - but then my parents didn't listen to that sort of music when i was a kid. I'm not very good at the fiddle... Still just beginning. But back in spring, I was learning to play Music Of Spey. So, what with the good weather coming in and all, I decided that I'd walk home not through the Duthie Park (like usual) but through the Allen Vale Cemetary - which was all coming out in cherry blossom. I had my personal stereo and it had just come to the end of the album. After the music had stopped I continued walking, and started humming "Music Of Spey" (which Scott Skinner wrote). Then for no apparent reason, I stopped. I stopped walking. Not something I often do, because when I'm walking home from work I usually thunder on and nothing gets in my way! I wondered wh...

Be prepared ye listeners for an unbridled, fully unrestrained RANT about the substitution in our traditional scottish culture of the beautifully imperfect, purpley/whitey/green, lumpy root vegetable that is THE NOBLE TURNIP for the heinous orange blight on a scottish tradition that is THE PUMPKIN. Jesus wept. The reason for my rant was today's visit to Tescos. Yes Tescos... I'm addressing YOU! You have lovely adverts and Yes! We much admire the efforts of the talented Prunella Scales to increase your sales of bargain curries and delicious deli foods... but for GOD'S SAKE!!! Pumpkins!?!?! Pumpkins as FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE! And it's not even as if I can rant on and go "pumpkins in all shapes and sizes!" for they are ALL THE SAME SHAPE and ALL THE SAME SIZE! Totally identical! UNIFORM! But could I find one neep? One beautiful... hairy... knobbly neep? Could I hell. There was a couple of sliced up (butchered! murdered! weeping!) "swedes" in the section...

Is it too early to be thinking about going to the Glastonbury Festival next year? You see I had this idea that I'd like to be performing there... Although I have to admit I have NO idea how to go about it... I visited the storytelling tent in the Healing Fields in 2003 and bloody loved it. Pondering... Edit: July 2007 - Well, my wish finally came true! :D http://greenfuturesfestivals.org.uk/storytellers.html - here's the link to my performing! :)

I have to put in a link to this... Bloody brilliant! I was looking for some stuff on scottish ghosties and myths and a' that and stumbled upon this. 's hilarious! If I'd known about this site when I was doing my bit on the Greeeey Man of Ben MacDhui... I'd have linked to this instead! :) http://www.firstfoot.com/scotchmyth/mythframemain.htm

Now then... Dad was an apprentice aged about 21 when he was working at a farm with a couple of other joiners. They were given a room at the top of the farmhouse and told (by the rather moody farmer's wife) that after a (very early) hour that they were to try not to make much noise as the farmer needed his sleep to get up early to feed cows etc. But of course... having spent the night drinking (fine farm ale) they went up to their room for the night, one of the other joiners needed a pee! But the stairs were very squeaky and it was a long way downstairs to the outside privy. So Dad had a bright idea. (As he often does in such stories.) If you unscrew the two bedknobs from the end of the bed, you can then remove the connecting bar and use it to pee out the window into the flower beds. Well, you know what's coming, don't you? They did this just as the farmer was lighting his last pipe of the night, he got an unintended early shower and a cry went up into the night!

Wow! What a great day for storytelling. I was off volunteering today at Archaeolink and wow! I am practically hoarse! First of all there was a(n extended) family that came in. Now, it seems that a few weeks ago, I'd told them The Distressing Tale Of Skvoo The Shrew . A story inspired by a lovely Bavarian lassie called Sabina who spotted a shrew one day and named him "Deathscrew the Shrew" (Don't ask!) The mum told me the kids were happy to see me and that she'd been woken early one morning with cries that Skvoo The Shrew was running round the house!!! I can't describe enough how delighted I am by this! :) I love it when kids REALLY pay attention... So I told them The Tale of the Stupid Prince . The Stupid Prince is a character from another story my friends Miss Honey and Dannigan often tell. He turned out to be so obnoxious and hateful that he got his own story. Then I told Brat And Garat (a tale of Iron Age sacrifice for the morbid kids) and...